Still spinning from this idea in 's "Making in Public": that when the economics of consumption don't work—e.g. because the product is a public good—a more viable model may exist around the economics of *production*. That is: when might production *be* the product?
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This is a compelling angle for many (especially older) Kickstarter projects: when what you're buying as a backer is not the eventual product, but rather causing the product to be made at all. You're buying its production. The eventual product is like a positive externality.
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Subscription content producers have a similar vibe. Buyers aren't paying to unlock some article's paywall; they're buying into creation of future work. I wonder if this is more compelling if purchases plausibly cause marginal output: "I'll write fulltime when I get X subscribers"
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Nadia observes that sometimes the production "product" being bought is access—feeling closer to the creator, a private community, sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes, etc. My instinct is that this offering can only scale so far, but I'd be curious to learn about counter-examples!
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This has been a compelling angle to think about funding my work. In this frame, my output artifacts are public goods (essays, interfaces)—positive externalities from an ongoing process which is itself the product. My "customers" buy a verb, not a noun.
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Of course, I don't know what it means to make my production process a product. Patreon still has a "charity" vibe that doesn't seem right. I'm increasingly thinking of it more as "crowdfunding an NSF CAREER grant," which captures the causative angle. Still feels like not enough.
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Very thought-provoking. Have similar feeling about Patreon - been considering adding a paid bit to the Substack, which at least feels like ppl would pay for my work rather than charity - but not til I can completely commit to it!
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On the contrary, it might work better before you can completely commit to it, because then you can authentically propose that marginal subscribers will cause marginal writing!
people will support what they help create. you might have to have the gall to make almost-unreasonable demands of an audience: perfect attention and honest, heartfelt engagement with the content. it's a profound invitation; many "just want to scroll"
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